What a day!
This is a picture of the first tee. For the rest of the pictures, visit my Facebook page.
Damage report Scotty!
- Sore quads
- Really sore calves
- Lots of scrapes and scratches (but none picture-worthy)
- One head over heels fall (but aikido training is great at injury avoidance)
- Left ankle really sore
- Right hip even more sore
- Blister on right big toe
- Sunburn on neck and shoulders
All of it totally worth it.
Here's a rundown of the day:
0430 - Check email and Facebook.
0500 - Load car.
0520 - Hit the road.
0730 - Arrive at Creekside. My brother was already there. He said he wasn't going to be there until 8. I thought I would have some time to practice with my new disks. He did offer to play a round there while we were the only ones there but I thought we should head up the mountain. It turned out to be the right choice.
0830 - Arrived at Snowbird ski resort. Too bad we were trying to Solitude ski resort. We missed a key sign and drove up the wrong canyon.
0900 - Arrived at Solitude. We picked up a scorecard and asked for direction to tee #1. We were told that the lift wasn't running today so we would have to hike up. The first choice was to hike in the wrong direction until we reached a mountain bike trail and then follow the bike trail up (being careful to watch for speeding mountain bikes coming down the trail). The second choice, if we were adventurous, was to just hike up under the ski lift where there was no trail. We chose adventurous (and burning calves - go see the pics). We were sweating like banshees and our calves were screaming like pigs by the time we got to the top. I'm so glad that we did the climb first thing in the morning when it was cooler.
0930ish - We started our round of disk golf. The course is 8,000 feet long from tee to basket to the next tee. We figured it was probably closer to 10,000 feet when you added in all the searching for disks. The trees and foliage were *thick*. Even on a good shot, it took a bit of looking around to find your disk and we threw a lot of terrible shots. On one hole, we probably spent about 20 minutes looking for disks. As tough as the Solitude course was, we didn't lose a single disk. In fact, I found one on hole #18, which was kind of a weird story.
Hole 18 of Solitude is over 1,200 feet long with a 400 foot drop. It's amazing. I can't throw that far but my brother can. We decided to each throw two disks just because we wanted to watch them fly. My brothers first disk hooked to the right and didn't even make it halfway. My first disk, a neon orange Destroyer, went down the middle about halfway. My brother took his second attempt and threw his disk about 1,000 feet down the hill. It was off to the left a few hundred feet but it was dang impressive none-the-less. I threw my second throw (a neon green Groove) and it was pure crap.
We hiked down and found my Groove and his hooked disk. We hiked over to the middle and searched around for about 5 minutes until we found a neon orange disk. I threw that further down the hill. It still wasn't as far as his so we hike down to it. When I picked it up, I realized it wasn't mine. I hiked back up the hill and after another 5 minutes, I found mine. What are the odds that someone lost a neon orange disk in the same area where I threw my neon orange disk?
That last hike really worked the front of my toes as they jammed into the front of my brand new boots and gave my quads a killer workout. I skipped my morning workout so that I could get an early jump on the day. This month, Thursdays have been leg day so I don't feel like I actually skipped my workout.
All of the baskets at Solitude were long distance, which gave my brother the distinct advantage, since he can throw farther than me. He beat me by 7 throws.
1230 - We stopped at Porcupine Pub & Grill for a snack. Cory (my brother) had a friend tell him that we should stop in for nachos at the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon. When we came out of the canyon, we stopped. The nachos are *supposed* to be an appetizer. We had just hiked up to 9,000 feet and walked 2 miles coming down and were hungry and we couldn't finish the *appetizer*. I can't imagine eating the nachos and then eating a meal. My brother said that maybe it was an appetizer for 8 people. All the tables are set up for 4 people.
We didn't stay long because the place was so noisy. We couldn't visit because of the noise so we just ate. It probably took us about 10 - 15 minutes to be full and we were out of there. Our whole conversation was a couple of yelled sentences about how crazy it would be to come here and try to visit with people at your table. Everyone was yelling like they were in a rock concert.
1300 - We arrived at Creekside and played a couple of rounds. We were tired after doing Solitude but I just feel like I need to play 3 rounds when I come in from BFE.
To fill you in on how distance is a factor, most of the Holladay baskets were about 300 feet. On Solitude they were 500+, where I lost by 7 throws. I lost the first round of Holladay by only 1 throw and won the second round by 1 throw.
I changed up my grip in Holladay to see if that helped but I still was 25 - 50 feet short of what my brother can do. He was also spot on with his putts in the front nine of the last round. My putts got better and better as the day went on as I found a style that fit my way of playing.
1700 - Finished the last round and headed home. 8 hours of disk golf. What a day!
Consumed for the day:
- One protein bar
- 125 ounces of G2 Gatorade (each)
- Half an order of nachos
- Lots of water
I'm hoping we can do something similar in a couple weeks. I'd like to get in a couple more disk golf days before summer ends. One up at Solitude when the lift is running and one at another course. The next one will probably have to be a week from Sunday and the next one two weeks after that.
Summer is going to be over way too soon.
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